


The Courage of Your Sins

by Miri1984



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Asexual Character, BDSM, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Oral Sex, dom Zolf, sex positive zolf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:28:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23836897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miri1984/pseuds/Miri1984
Summary: Oscar needs to let go sometimes.
Relationships: Zolf Smith/Oscar Wilde
Comments: 13
Kudos: 172
Collections: Rusty Quill Gaming Exchange 2020





	The Courage of Your Sins

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yakyuu_yarou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yakyuu_yarou/gifts).



> Thank you to you know who for talking me through a few things. I hope you enjoy!

There’s a build up to it, and Zolf can see the patterns in the few days preceding. Wilde sharpens his pens more often, there’s a little more force to his throws as he tosses crumpled papers into the wastebasket. He makes more noises, hums under his breath a little more. It’s when the crackle of magic starts to seep into his voice that Zolf knows he’s about to crack.

Then there’ll come a night when he doesn’t come home. 

Oscar Wilde is an adult, and Zolf hasn’t got any right to keep tabs on him. So on the nights in the city when he doesn’t come back to the safe house, when he simply finds a note saying “I’ll be back in the morning” he doesn’t speculate on what Wilde is doing. He only knows that when Wilde returns something in him has reset. He’s loose, and exhausted, and he sleeps the morning away before getting up and starting again, back to zero, for a time at least.

And then they have to go into quarantine.

The rules are simple. Each agent is partnered with another, no agents are allowed to act on their own, if any agent has contact outside their assigned partner (or group) then said agent must go into quarantine again, no exceptions. 

Wilde knows what the rules were. He’d helped write them, but even as they are laid out in the communication to all agents, Zolf can see his knuckles whiten. A short, sharp inhale of breath.

“We were expecting this, right?” Zolf says.

“Naturally,” Oscar responds, but his voice matches the line of his muscles, the set of his shoulders, the angle of his neck. It sounds tight.

* * *

They spend a week in quarantine and if anything that seems to calm Wilde. Their cell in Cairo is clean and well looked after, they have no privacy but that’s never really been an issue, at least not for Zolf, who’s spent years on ships, crammed hammock to hammock with his crewmates. And Wilde, paradoxically, after his reaction to the initial order, seems relaxed. He takes his meals, he sleeps - more than Zolf has ever seen him sleep before at a time - he talks mildly with Zolf about inconsequential things, even good naturedly discussing a Harrison Campbell novel that Zolf had never caught him reading.

“You’re pretty chipper, with all this,” Zolf says at one point, buttoning his shirt after their inspection.

“There’s nothing I can do about it,” Wilde says, simply, and gives Zolf a small smile, one that feels genuine. “There’s something freeing about that - the knowledge that I’m not in control.”

Zolf raises an eyebrow. Files the information away. He can understand where Wilde is coming from, to a certain extent. 

“You like that?”

“Sometimes,” Wilde says, and his expression turns wary. “Don’t you?”

Zolf shrugs. “I spent years on ships. You get told what to do by some real arseholes sometimes.”

“Well yes, if it’s an order from someone you don’t respect - someone you don’t trust, it’s very different.”

“You trusted the meritocrats.”

Wilde’s expression goes grim. “I did.”

Zolf six months ago probably would have made a jab at him for that, but not now. Instead he just nods, 

“We all made mistakes,” he says. 

* * *

They get let out and spend a month chasing leads that all point to Japan. Wilde shows the same signs Zolf had noticed before quarantine, a few times, but he is more tightly controlled than ever, and while he doesn’t disappear any longer he does sometimes retreat to whatever privacy he can manage for an hour here and there. Zolf doesn’t ask what he does, but it doesn’t seem to be  _ enough  _ and it’s almost tangible, the edges of Wilde that are fraying.

Of course, the world is ending around them, so it would make sense for Wilde to be affected by it. And part of Zolf wonders if the reason he can see it is because Wilde trusts him, more than he used to, more than anyone else in the current world.

* * *

Then they’re forced to kill Alfred Douglas.

* * *

Zolf knows what grief feels like, sometimes he believes he’s been trapped in a cage made of it since Feryn died, but it is one thing to mourn someone, to hold their memory in you like a gem, its edges sharp enough to cut even after decades. It is quite another thing to see that grief play out in someone else, someone he’s learned to care about in his own way these past months. It’s ugly and it tears at his insides and he  _ aches  _ with the need to make it better somehow. He can’t. He knows that. All he can do is be there for Wilde as he sobs, heal his face and brush back his regrowing hair and tell him it’s all right to grieve, that he understands.

Afterwards, Wilde is calm and sure and cold. The times when they are forced to separate start to feel like mini deaths for Zolf.  _ He _ has always taken to forced quarantine with a rather sanguine attitude, there’s a week where he can catch up on reading, after hunting down another sighting of the giant sea monster, a routine of returning to the inn and taking up residence and bantering with Carter and Barnes, being gently admonished by Wilde for his reading habits. A break in routine. And yes, there is a sense of dread about it all, but… really. That’s normal, these days.

It’s not like that. Not any more. 

Wilde no longer comes down to the cell, except to check for veins. Wilde acts as though Zolf is a different person. When he gives instructions to Zolf, to remove his clothes, to turn this way, and that, his eyes are cold and his voice is flat and…

...it  _ hurts.  _ It hurts to have someone he trusts treat him as though he can’t be. It hurts to see Wilde completely cut off from who he was, not just the dandy who had waltzed into Hamid’s apartment, drunk his booze and fucked his friend, but the anxious, worried handler, the caring administrator, the sardonically amused end of the world bunkmate…

Zolf’s  _ friend. _

Zolf knows that he pretends the Zolf in the cell is someone he never knew, because he’s terrified that one day, when he comes down, Zolf  _ will be. _

* * *

When he comes out of quarantine the first time, the second time, the third… Zolf is on eggshells around Wilde. Before Douglas, they’d brushed fingers, squeezed hands, given gentle pats of reassurance. Zolf isn’t a tactile person but Wilde is and Zolf had grown used to that, but now…

Now it feels that if he touched him unexpectedly, he’d shatter. And the shattering would be enough to break the the both of them.

The problem is, he  _ does _ want to touch him, he realises. Wants to comfort him. Hold him close and tell him it’ll be alright, that he doesn’t have to carry the burden alone, that there is a reason they’re here together. That they’re partners.

* * *

It’s late at night, and Zolf has finished helping Ryu clean the kitchen, and he knows Wilde is still awake, upstairs, in the reading room, sorting through papers, looking for patterns, trying to fix this. He makes tea, measuring the leaves, heating the water, and thinks about how fragile Wilde is. Thinks about what it was that he was doing, those nights in Prague, in Cairo. Thinks about his calm acceptance of quarantine.

He has an idea, and he thinks it might work. 

He wants to help.

* * *

Wilde thanks him, absent minded as he takes the cup and sips. Zolf watches the way his long, tapered fingers curl around the cup, drawing warmth from it. He opens his mouth, but doesn’t know how to articulate what he wants to offer. Wilde senses that he’s still there and looks up, a small, confused smile on his lips.

“What is it, Zolf?”

“I want to help you,” Zolf blurts.

A soft chuckle. “With the paperwork?” he says. “You’re welcome to. But you always get so impatient with…”

“Not that,” he says. He takes a deep breath. “You know how… back when we were… before the quarantines started? In Prague? And Cairo. You used to…” Zolf licks his lips. “You used to go out at night. When things got bad you’d go out and you’d come back… better.”

Wilde has frozen now. He doesn’t exactly look hunted, but the smile is gone and his face is carefully blank.

“I did,” he says. “I… there were things I had to do.”

“Things that helped.”

Wilde nods, slowly. 

“I can do those things for you,” Zolf says. 

Wilde’s mouth drops open and he blinks a few times, then carefully sets the teacup back down on the tray. “I don’t think you…”

Zolf rolls his eyes. “Wilde I’m fifty years old and I’ve been a sailor for most of that. I know what you need. I’ve seen it before.”

Wilde tilts his head and then rests his chin on one hand, looking at Zolf curiously. “Really?” he says. 

Zolf takes a deep breath and steps around behind Wilde’s chair. He reaches out a hand towards him, keeping eye contact the whole time. Wilde’s lips are parted, and he sees his tongue dart out, quickly, to wet his lips as Zolf threads his fingers through Wilde’s hair. It isn’t the first time he’s touched Wilde, but it is definitely the first time he’s done it with… intent. Purpose. He swallows down any uncertainty he might have been feeling about offering this, and tightens his hand into a fist, drinking in Wilde’s gasp and tipping his head back to expose his throat.

“Do you trust me?” Zolf drops his voice. Wilde tries to nod, but Zolf’s grip on his hair is too tight. 

“Yes,” he breathes out. Zolf runs one finger down the line of Wilde’s scar and feels him give an entire body shiver. 

“All right then. First we talk. Then… well.”

* * *

They talk.

“You should know,” Oscar says straight at the outset. “Usually when I do this, it’s sexual.” Zolf nods. That’s been his experience, what he’s seen on ship, the few times he’s taken part. “But it doesn’t have to be,” Oscar continues. “I know that you’re not necessarily…”

“I can work with that,” Zolf says, and Oscar looks surprised.

“Do you  _ want  _ to…”

Zolf smiles. “I’m not averse. Just… usually uninterested. Funnily enough in circumstances like this one? It’s a lot easier.”

Oscar’s breath quickens a little at that, and Zolf feels himself colour. He isn’t blind. He knows that Oscar is a man of sensuality and someone who appreciates beauty, but he’s never thought that appreciation might extend to him.

Not that he thinks he’s ugly, but he’s so very different to Wilde, not just because of his legs and his species. He sometimes feels like every part of him has been scoured to roughness, that the scar tissue surrounding the stumps of his legs extends right to his bones, the marks of the sea and Poseidon’s wrath beaten into his flesh, making it hard and inelegant.

Next to Wilde, he’s like an ancient crumbling ruin of a person, two ends of a spectrum, people who couldn’t possibly be more different to each other.

Except, in these past months, they’ve both realised that isn’t the case.

There are details to work out. Boundaries that both of them need to set in place. It’s something of a transaction, and Zolf learns that Oscar does not enjoy pain, per-se (not like some he has known), he simply wishes to be relieved of responsibility. Told what to do. Guided by a trusted hand.

And sometimes, fucked.

When they’re done with the negotiations, Zolf is surprisingly tired. But it is later than he normally retires, for all that he sometimes finds Wilde in the same position he’s left him when he brings in his morning tea.

“Do you want to do this tonight?” Zolf asks, and his voice is rougher than he would have thought.

Wilde shakes his head. “No,” he says. “I’m not in desperate need right now.” He gives a small snort laugh, his eyes crinkling endearingly. “Funnily enough, being told that you could help has… already helped. A great deal. And it’s late and I am not certain where I have stashed my er… supplies.”

“I have rope,” Zolf says. 

“I know,” Wilde says, and his smile gets an edge of the mischievous about it. “But mine is nicer.” “Hmph,” Zolf says, but he smiles as he says it, getting to his feet, wincing a little at the pain in his prosthetics. When he glances at Wilde again he finds the expression on his face different. Contemplative.

“I said this didn’t have to be sexual,” Wilde says. “You were… quick to say that it wouldn’t bother you if it was. Quicker than I would have thought.”

Zolf gives a noncommittal nod. “Sex doesn’t have any inherent moral value, Oscar,” he says, the name slipping out without thought. He hesitates, wondering if he should apologise, take it back. “You’re not good or bad for doing it. Or not doing it, as the case may be.”

“Mmmph,” Oscar says. “But you generally… don’t.”

“I make exceptions,” Zolf says.

“You don’t have to justify it to me,” Oscar says, quickly. “I’m just… well. Flattered. I suppose. That I would be one of them. Your exceptions.”

“I think you’re prone to being exceptional,” Zolf says.

The faint flush of colour that spreads over Oscar’s cheekbones is… lovely... and Zolf feels abruptly like the floor has shifted under him. Strange that after the past hour of discussion, this is the thing that makes him blink rapidly and look away.

Wilde hums under his breath, nothing melodic, nothing that might tap into his magic, but it makes Zolf shiver nonetheless. “Well then, you’ll let me know?”

“I will.”

* * *

It is a few days, almost a week before Wilde comes to him. There had been a communication from Curie - delivered via drop offs, one that Carter and Barnes had to go out to collect. Which meant when they returned they had to be quarantined, and Zolf had to watch Wilde’s mask come down as Barnes delivered the report, then marched the complaining Carter down to the cells. 

They would be fine. Zolf still lies to himself about that, ever hopeful. Wilde though…

Once they’ve left, Wilde reads through the communication, then folds it up. He won’t tell Zolf what’s in it, not unless it involves a mission for Zolf, but the way his shoulders stiffen, the way he sucks air in through his nose, the sharp motion of his hand as he sets the message on fire… 

… that tells Zolf enough.

After he has swept the ashes into the wastebasket at the corner of his desk, he steeples his fingers together and looks at Zolf over the top of them.

“I think,” he says, precisely, “I may require your assistance this evening, Zolf.”

* * *

Zolf is nervous, anticipatory as Oscar undresses. The rope he cradles in his hand is beautifully woven, soft and silky against his skin - the kind of pretty, expensive, largely useless thing one might find adorning the bed posts of an expensive hotel. One couldn’t haul a sail with something this delicate, but it would be more than sufficient for their needs.

He watches as Oscar unbuttons his shirt. They’ve seen each other naked many times at this point, by virtue of travelling together, because of quarantine, but they’ve always maintained a polite disinterest. Or attempted to. Zolf is familiar with the slopes of Oscar’s shoulders, the pointed tips of his shoulderblades, the sweep of his collarbone and the curve of his neck. 

There is more muscle there than there had been at the start of their working relationship. Wilde had never been quite as soft as he looked, but constant travel and vigilance has left him with a grip that, while it has no hope of matching Zolf’s own, is steady on the hilt of a knife, and even, occasionally in bouts with Barnes, a sword.

Zolf watches as Oscar undoes his belt, his pants, slides them off, looking over his shoulder at Zolf as he does so.

Zolf grunts. “None of that,” he says. “This isn’t a show, Wilde. You’ll do as you’re told, and nothing more.”

Wilde shivers, and the small smile that had begun to form on his lips as he undressed slips off. 

Zolf snaps the rope taught in his hands, then nods once, firmly. “Come here.”

Oscar obeys.

* * *

Oscar obeys when Zolf tells him to undress him, when Zolf sharply reprimands him for touching where he was not permitted, when Zolf tells him to be still and silent once Zolf is completely naked, despite the roving of his eyes over Zolf’s body. 

Oscar obeys when Zolf tells him where to put his hands, how to position his feet. Zolf pulls the ropes tight across his skin, tilts his head upwards with a finger under his chin and asks him, gently, firmly, if he is all right.

Oscar lets out a breath, and then pulls one in, and it shudders a little.

“Are you all right?” Zolf asks again, and Oscar nods, and Zolf leans down and kisses him.

Oscar lets out a soft gasp and leans into the kiss. Zolf gently explores his mouth with his lips and tongue, reaching up to tangle his fingers in Oscar’s hair and guide him, pulling, tugging him into place, checking to see how much resistance Oscar is offering to his gentle manipulation of his position.

Not much, but there…  _ there _ is still a little tension. An indication that Oscar hasn’t quite reached the place he needs to be for any of this to work.

Zolf nips down on Oscar’s lip, enough to sting, but not truly hurt, then pulls back, tugging Oscar’s head by his hair. Oscar’s eyes - blue, or green, or grey, they shift and change like the ocean in a storm - are wide, the pupils blown. “You’re too tense,” he says. “What will it take for you to let go?”

Oscar licks his lips, then drags his gaze down Zolf’s torso, lingering on his still limp cock, then back up to his face. 

“You want to please me?”

A tiny jerk of his head, a nod.

Zolf tries to ignore the slight twitch in his cock at the idea that Oscar Wilde wishes to please him. This is an intimacy, and Zolf is perhaps, enjoying too much the fact that he is in control. But he is doing this for Wilde, not for himself, and so he releases Oscar’s hair and nods once, firmly. 

“You can try.”

It’s awkward, for Oscar to move himself into position, but Zolf doesn’t help as he shuffles forwards. He noses the skin next to Zolf’s cock, then opens his mouth and gives a tentative kiss to its tip.

Zolf keeps his gaze neutral and trained on Oscar, even as his cock swells to hardness. It takes a little time - Zolf is not one for sudden onsets of desire and arousal - but Oscar is diligent, and skilled and eventually Zolf is fully hard, and it's more than a little difficult to keep his breathing even as Oscar sucks in a deep breath through his nose and swallows him down to the root.

It would be easy to slip into the hazy realm of pleasure right now, to simply close his eyes and succumb to the feel of Oscar’s lips and tongue on the most sensitive parts of him.

Perhaps.

One day.

But now he lets Oscar move on him for a few minutes, watching his lips turn more and more red and wet with drool, listening to the soft sounds of sex, his hand lying gently on the back of his neck to feel the tendons there, smoothing his other hand over his shoulders.

He feels it, when Oscar finally lets go. The last bit of tension drains from those muscles as Oscar gives a small groan of pleasure, swallowing around Zolf, taking him fully into his throat. The air leaves Zolf in a rush and he bucks his hips a little. The sound that Oscar lets out at that is more heartfelt, and vibrates through Zolf’s thighs.

Zolf touches his cheek to get his attention and Oscar’s eyes cant upwards, meeting Zolf’s, and they look nothing like Zolf has seen them before. Trusting. Calm. 

Zolf swallows and rolls his hips, firmly, fucking into Oscar’s throat, and watches tears form at their corners. “You want this?”

Oscar slumps even further, gives as much of a nod as he can with his throat stuffed full of Zolf’s cock. 

_ Gods  _ but he looks beautiful like this.

Zolf fucks into his throat, letting the pleasure overtake him, still aware of Oscar’s state, still watching to see signs that he has crossed a line, but taking his own pleasure now as it surges through him, the tight channel of warmth and wet, the muffled sounds coming from Oscar, the way his body flexes against the beautiful lines of ropes across his skin all combining into an urgent pool of heat and want, building to an inevitable peak.

He grasps his cock and gently pulls Oscar’s head back before he comes, a few quick jerks tipping him over the edge, painting stripes across Oscar’s chest as he lets out a soft cry of release. It’s been some time for him, he remembers suddenly. He hasn’t even been tempted to take care of himself lately, what with the world ending around them, and for a second his mind is blissfully quiet in the rush of pure, carnal pleasure.

When he comes back to himself Oscar is leaning against his hip, mouthing at the skin there, murmuring indistinct words into Zolf’s flesh. He strokes one hand through Oscar’s curls, then gently tugs on them again so he can see Oscar’s face.

It’s slack, blissful, as though Oscar was the one who had just painted Zolf with his spend. He is still hard, though, his cock standing proud and beautiful up against his stomach, tip glistening with precome.

Zolf smooths his hands over Oscar’s face, clearing away sweat and tears and drool.

“Beautiful,” he says, and feels Oscar shiver. More tears pool at the edges. “Do you need to stop?”

Oscar shakes his head.

“Do you need to come?”

An almost frantic nod, yes.  _ Yes. _

Zolf smiles.

Oscar is heavier than he looks, but Zolf is stronger than most would even think, and he is relatively easy to pick him up and move to the bed. Oscar lets out a surprised huff as Zolf does so, something that is almost laughter, but not quite, then relaxes as Zolf arranges him so he can kneel between his legs.

“Is this okay?” Zolf asks, looking up, and Oscar’s bottom lip is caught between his lips, and there is something reverential about the way he is looking at him now. 

“Please,” Oscar manages to breathe out, the first discernable word he has said since the last of the ropes were tightened around him.

“You stay still. Quiet. Not a word, or a sound until you come.”

Oscar nods, panting a little now, and Zolf allows himself a small, satisfied smile, reaches up to thumb at Oscar’s pouting bottom lip.  _ “When  _ you come, though,” he says. “I want to  _ hear it.”  _ Then he leans forward and takes him into his mouth.

There is a moment when Zolf can understand why Oscar wanted this. A moment where he is tempted to ask the same from him, some day. Or perhaps Zolf wishes Oscar, or someone, had been there to do this for him. After the shipwreck. After Prague. 

It might be too akin to drowning, letting go of that control. But perhaps if he trusts enough, he can try.

When Oscar comes he lets out a long, shuddering cry, hips bucking as Zolf swallows him down, the bitter tang of him sharp on his tongue. Zolf pulls off and climbs up his body, keeping contact with Oscar’s skin as he does so. He wraps his arms around Oscar, carefully pulls him close, nuzzles into his neck.

“It’s time,” he says. Time to untie him. Oscar makes a soft noise of protest, and Zolf forces his tone a little more harsh. “You know who is in charge here,” he says, and Oscar nods.

Zolf begins work on loosening the knots.

Oscar shivers when he is finally free, and Zolf rubs his hands and feet, helping to get blood flowing back into limbs. He gets water and sits next to Oscar while he drinks it, smoothing his hands through his hair and dropping gentle kisses to the top of his head as he does so. “Do you need any healing?” he asks, softly.

“No,” Oscar says. “You’re remarkably good with knots.”

Zolf chuckles. “I know you’re not surprised by that, at least.”

“Just… a few other things,” Oscar is still smiling, still looking at Zolf with a soft fondness that does… something to Zolf’s insides. Still, it doesn’t seem strange, to be doing this with him, no more strange than anything that came before, and once he’s certain Oscar hasn’t been harmed, once he’s certain Oscar has drunk enough, is clean and comfortable, he settles down with Oscar nuzzled into Zolf’s chest, and Zolf lets his fingers trail up and down his spine, breathing in time with him, feeling how loose and relaxed he is. Enjoying the stillness.

They lie quiet for a long time. Zolf almost thinks Oscar is asleep, except that his breathing doesn’t slow any further than it is already. He is in no hurry for this to end, for Oscar to leave. There’s a chance this might have to be a regular occurence, but Zolf isn’t going to pin any hopes on that, and suspects that Oscar would rather it didn’t have to. But the physical contact, the intimacy of this moment, is enough for Zolf, enough to counteract the creeping dread of the world as it is around them.

Finally, after an hour? Two? Oscar pushes himself away with a sigh. Stands up. Starts to gather his clothes. Stops.

Turns. 

“Curie needs you at the coast. Einstein is coming tomorrow afternoon to transport you. A sighting of the squid, we think it caused a shipwreck near Alexandria.”

Zolf blinks. Then nods. 

“Solo mission?” he says.

Oscar nods again. The silence stretches out for a long minute, then Oscar starts pulling on his clothes.

“I’ll bring you breakfast tomorrow,” Zolf says. Hesitates. “Unless…”

Oscar stops, one foot in his pants, and looks up at him. 

“Yes?”

“Unless you want to stay?” Zolf says. He tries to keep his voice even, not let the hint of hope creep in. A solo mission. Even with teleportation, once he leaves it’ll be seven days before he can see Oscar again. His Oscar. The one who doesn’t believe he is already dead.

A shudder runs through Oscar. “You don’t have to…”

“Please, Oscar,” Zolf says. “Stay here?”

Oscar sniffs. Swallows. Zolf can see him weighing options. Wants to hold his breath. 

But he can’t push him any more than he already has. This has to be Oscar’s choice. 

When he drops the pants back on the floor and comes back to Zolf, sliding in next to him, wrapping his arms around him, pulling him close, burying his face in Zolf’s chest…

It hurts. But it feels like coming home.


End file.
